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| How did they even get some of those keys, like the school key? |
Homer takes the kids out to buy a returned wedding cake for cheap, but after returning home he accidentally leaves Maggie in the car, locked, with the keys. Marge empties out a drawer full of keys hoping to find the car's spare, but Maggie is somehow able to exit the car on her own and return inside the house. With panic subsided, the family takes a look at all the keys they have, and decide to do whatever with them. Bart takes a handful of keys in hopes of committing pranks, but every attempt of his ends up doing the community good, which he hates. Homer has the keys to the Duff Brewery somehow, so he and Barney sneak in, going to the back of the brewery where the blimp is. Barney tricks Homer into thinking the blimp wants him inside, and Homer quickly steals the blimp and flies off into the sky.
Lisa finds a key to the school, and runs off to return it. She's stopped by Nelson, who convinces her to live a little, and figure out what the key opens before returning it. Lisa looks around the building, and sees three odd door side by side: Banned Books, Band Books, and Banned Band Books. Lisa's key ends up opening the latter door, and she goes inside to find a strange sight: a large classroom that seems impressive at first, but none of the materials within are actually legitimate. Lisa talks to Principal Skinner about the room, but when the two, along with a bunch of kids, go to the door, the path to the room is replaced by a bookcase, leaving Lisa stunned.
With Superintendent Chalmers apparently part of the cover up, Skinner is able to grab Lisa's key, and Lisa is left unable to solve the mystery. Luckily, the school paper took a photo of Lisa holding the key, so she uses it to have a duplicate key made to reopen that door. She busts down the bookcase and re-enters the room, where a mysterious stranger writes on the chalkboard about "the children of bus 23". Bart, whose tired of his key adventure, teams up with Lisa at this point and has her talk to someone who has been at the school for a long time: the often held back Nelson. Nelson does recall a bus 23, where on a wintry morning Chalmers forces Skinner to send off that bus through an ice bridge for the sake of time even though it'd likely be too heavy to cross. Homer arrives in the blimp on coincidence, and the two decide to have Homer take them there.
Homer, of course, can't really operate blimps, so as they reach the river where bus 23 supposedly met its fate, Lisa ends up falling out of the blimp, and into the water where she finds the bus with the kids still inside. Homer jumps in after her, but he knocks the bus on its side, allowing the bodies to float up through the window. Quickly, the two realize that these aren't dead kids, but actually mannequins. However, the two are quickly swarmed by the mannequins and are forced underwater. Thankfully, another key side story where Marge puts a wind-up key in a moving flatulence toy comes to fruition, as the "Pooter Toot Express" hits an old tree which falls and creates a bridge Homer and Lisa can grab onto.
With the demise of the toy, Marge and Maggie meet up with the rest of the family. Across the river, Lisa spies the mysterious man she had seen earlier, which turns out to be Otto, who drove the bus to its grave. Otto is relieved upon learning the kids were only mannequins, and the family decides to bring the mystery to an end. Skinner and Chalmers attempt to escape, but Bart is able to steal Skinner's car keys, forcing the two to reveal the truth. Years ago, the school was given a government grant to improve the school. Skinner cashed the check but the money he put in his pocket was lost when his mother washed his jeans. Fearing the feds would go after them, the two along with Willie set up a fake classroom with mannequins to fool the feds into thinking they did spend the money wisely. However, they were only renting the mannequins, so they had to return them quickly, which is why Chalmers risked using the ice bridge route. Of course, the two never counted on the future Simpsons locking their baby in the car which would lead to them uncovering the keys to the mystery. Later, Otto, still relieved he didn't kill any kids, now is under the delusion the current group of kids he's carrying are also mannequins as the bus falls into the river.
Quick Review
With a heavy emphasis on storytelling, the episode doesn't have much of a chance to build on comedy, though early on it looked like it would with Bart's and Homer's stories before the focus is put on Lisa's conspiracy story which, mostly, was unfunny. This ends up as one of the weakest entries to the season.
As an aside, I want to take a moment to mention the character of Superintendent Chalmers. Originally, the guy was played as a straight man to Skinner's tomfoolery, whom Chalmers tolerated none of. His main role back in the day would be to critique the scared Principal and his school, which would usually go wrong once Bart pulls off a prank, leaving Skinner in Chalmers' dog house. It was a gag that worked well, but since then Chalmers' character has changed tremendously. Nowadays, he's a shell of his former self. Him yelling out "Skinner!" isn't used as an angry yell to shake up an already shaken Principal, but rather yet another catchphrase that's used only for that purpose. Further, Chalmers is now often used as Skinner's partner-in-crime in many instances. It first become really noticeable a few seasons ago, where "Chalmskin" productions hurt the episode more than helped, and that combination didn't help this episode any either. Chalmers is at his best when he's actually angry at Skinner for one reason or another, not to team up with Skinner to cover up something or working together to earn the school money.
Final Score: 6.2
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